Some days ago the New York Times published an excellent column by Richard Rubin on the last surviving American veterans of World War I. There are three, or were as of his writing, of whom only one, Frank Buckles of Charles Town, West Virginia (and a native of Missouri, I hasten to add), actually got to France, though not into combat.

On July 4, 1917, at the tomb of the Marquis de Lafayette in Paris, Col. Charles E. Stanton of the American Expeditionary Force, spoke these words:

America has joined forces with the Allied Powers, and what we have of blood and treasure are yours. Therefore it is that with loving pride we drape the colors in tribute of respect to this citizen of your great republic. And here and now in the presence of the illustrious dead we pledge our hearts and our honor in carrying this war to a successful issue.

Lafayette, we are here!

Stanton was speaking on behalf of the commander of the AEF, Gen. John J. Pershing (also of Missouri and pictured left), who is often given credit for that last line. He is also supposed to have said, with what turned out to be undue optimism, “Hell, Heaven or Hoboken by Christmas.”

Just a few months earlier Pershing had been chasing Pancho Villa back and forth across the Mexican border. My great-grandfather David Uppinghouse rode with Pershing in that campaign and later served in the artillery in France as well.

When I was in high school a mishap on the football field put me into the hospital for a few days. I shared a room with a silent old man who was, his relatives told me, a veteran of the Spanish-American War. I hardly knew what to think of that; it seemed impossible. The Spanish-American War had taken place in an entirely different century, and it was something I had only read about in my American history book, and not very near the end of it, either.

In fact, it had been only a little more than 60 years before. And now here is Mr. Buckles, bless him, the last survivor of the AEF in France, nearly 90 years later.

As World War I did not turn out to be the “war to end wars,” Mr. Buckles later found himself in the wrong place when Dubya-Dubya-Deuce broke out, and as a consequence he spent more than three years in a Japanese prison in Manila.

As this Thanksgiving approaches, I’d like to thank Richard Rubin for telling us about Mr. Buckles; and I’d like to thank Mr. Buckles for his service to his country so very long ago; and I’d like to thank Great-Grandfather for his service, too, and for helping to make it possible for me to be here to offer these thanks to them and to all who have served or are serving, uniformed or not, in whatever capacity.